Attention new users and infrequent posters!
This forum will now only allow a user to post links once they have made a minimum of 10 posts. This has been put in place to help prevent spammers and bots posting.
Thanks,
TorNorth

Question about actors and crying on cue

I've always been fascinated by whether or not actors can genuinely cry during crying scenes in movie and tv show. This is because I sometimes watch an actress cry, and it's so hot I hope this is how she cries in real life.

I read an interview of a British soap opera actress who said that she "couldn't stop crying" during a certain scene. Apparently she cried so much that they had to stop filming. I located the scene she was talking about (link pasted below). So, based on what she said, would she cry like this in real life (facial expressions etc)?

Re: Question about actors and crying on cue

I have read that actors and actress do cry for real in films and tv shows.

Some are clearly better at it that others - Emma Watson being one who appears to be fairly hopeless at it! - See Movie thread.Apparently the best way is to completely put yourself into the part and basically feel the emotions your character would feel - basically if your character would cry then so will you!

Other actors think about sad personal situations to bring on the tears - either things that have really happened or they put themselves in a horrible, emotional place.The actress in Eastenders probably got so upset because she put her own children into the scene where the baby died - pretty difficult stuff - not surprising she could not stop crying.

I had an ex-girlfriend who could cry on demand any time you asked her. She was very emotional generally and cried a lot but it was so amazing to watch.I'd ask her to cry and she would just look straight ahead - tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks in the time it took me to type this - such a turn on.

Re: Question about actors and crying on cue

In general, if I can tell that an actor is 100% really crying in a movie, then I'll assume that the look of their face and eyes while they cry is more or less the same as it would look in real life, and that their voice, if it sounds uncontrolled, would more or less sound that way in real life too. But what they do with their hands, posture, etc. could possibly be swayed by a director. I don't know to what degree people can control their facial expressions and voices when they cry, but probably not a whole lot (hence the vulnerability of crying!), but it would be pretty easy by comparison to change one's posture or make the choice as to whether or not to wipe falling tears off their face and stuff like that.

For me, it's about deciding how much they really cried in the movie. Some actors are 100% real. Some do a combination of both real and not quite as real... you sense that there is a real emotion underneath there, yet something tips you off and makes you feel they're exaggerating things a bit too much. They seem to be pushing themselves. But like I said, some are convincing as the real deal from start to finish. I just feel that there are some subtleties in the face and voice that cannot be faked. When I see/hear those subtleties, I become convinced. However, for those who push to seem like they are crying more than they really are, they still may be pushing in the direction that they naturally cry in anyway, so it could be giving a pretty close taste of how they really cry. But, because they have control over that part, they could also be stylizing it a bit to cry how they want to cry. That's the thing... you just never know. ;) But, if faking, it's probably easiest to "cry" how you would really cry in real life because you're most familiar with that feeling, right? At least that's the thought I just had. So I'll go with the guess that, whether they're faking a bit or not, most actors are still crying more or less like they would cry in real life (because they want it to seem and feel as real as possible). Now when it comes to comedians, I bet they would 'stylize' their crying a lot more often than other types of actors, and comedy definitely allows for some pretty heavily stylized crying, but there ARE comedians who cry real too and it ends up working brilliantly and not wrecking the comedy at all (which I LOVE... I wish more comedians would dare to cry for real!)

If this actress said she really cried during the filming, then I'm sure she really cried during the filming. However, from whatever take I saw on YouTube, I personally wouldn't have thought she is crying for real that whole time. For one thing, I couldn't get a good look at her face, which is always one of my key determining factors. And I thought her breathing sounded a bit exaggerated at times. But then, I'm really picky on being convinced of real crying. Regardless, I still think the scene played well. Sometimes real crying can make it harder to understand the words coming out when the audience really needs to hear them in order to understand the scene, so having control over one's "crying" can come in pretty handy. Gotta do what's best for the scene overall, I suppose. Although I bet some purists won't compromise under any circumstances. An interesting thought. I wish we had a real actor on the forum (or maybe we do) to weigh in on this. Anyway, what a tragic scene!!

A bit off-topic, but it would be fun to start a thread with movie scenes and do polls on how real the crying seems to be.

Re: Question about actors and crying on cue

Re: Question about actors and crying on cue

I think it's a really good idea as well - I'll try and find some - we should set some minimum information as well as rating them.Things like Movie title, Actor / Actress Name, Version (i.e. extended edition / directors cut), scene description and chapter / minutes into film etc.

Re: Question about actors and crying on cue

Getting back to the dicussion on this thread I agree with Woundedpuppy you can generally tell when someone is crying naturally.Actors and Actress can make themselves cry for real in that they produce tears but you get the feeling they are forcing it too much and it just seams false.I guess crying should have an air of being effortless even if the person is bawling their eyes out - because at the end of the day that's what crying is.

For those Actors / Actresses that can shed real tears they use an enthonol stick which they wipe under their eyes which releases a vapour which make their eyes sting and tears to fall.

Re: Question about actors and crying on cue

tearhunter wrote:

I had an ex-girlfriend who could cry on demand any time you asked her. She was very emotional generally and cried a lot but it was so amazing to watch.I'd ask her to cry and she would just look straight ahead - tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks in the time it took me to type this - such a turn on.